Site Mobile Navigation

SEAWAY STRUGGLE IS SEEN AT PARLEY

CLEVELAND, March 7—The St. Lawrence Seaway has a fight on its hands if it is to achieve the great economic role the builders foresaw.

This is the consensus of ex­perts who met here this week for what they called “a hard­boiled look” at the record. The waterway, built by Canada and the United States at a cost of $471,000,000, is about to enter its sixth season and, while traf­fic increases each year, the vol­ume has not met any of the pre‐opening forecasts.

Here are some of the cold facts laid before 150 delegates who attended the Institute on the St. Lawrence Seaway:

Seaway traffic (31 million tons last year) is several years behind the volume necessary for the two nations to start paying off capital costs.

An eroding struggle is de­veloping over the question of tolls, which some critics say are too high to attract payloads and others hold are too low for ac­ceptable business standards.

American shipline participa­tion in the Seaway‐Great Lakes routes has been disappointingly small, but whether this is cause or effect is not quite clear. Only one United States‐flag line—American Export‐Isbrandtsen—is in the waterway on a regular basis. Several others have nib­bled at the trade and one new line has applied for rights to go in.

The United States Govern­ment, which was described as having been led “stumbling and reluctant” into the project a decade ago by a more venture­some Canada, has done little to develop the waterway, and Fed­eral agencies are shy about routing Government cargoes at lower cost through the lake ports.

Railroads, which some Sea­way boosters classify as ene­mies along with the standard archfoes like New York and other ports along the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mex­ico, have also failed to con­tribute to Seaway development by providing equitable inland rates.

The speakers at the one‐day “cram” session, held yesterday at the Sheraton‐Cleveland Ho­tel, were experts from industry, shipping, foreign trade, ports and educational institutions stressing transportation studies.

One of the educators, Dr. John L. Hazard, professor of economics at the Michigan State University, summarized the dis­cussions at the end of the day by saying he believed that the balance was favorable to future growth.

Optimistic View

By far the most optimistic view was presented in terms of surplus grain by Robert C. Liebenow, president of the Chi­cago Board of Trade. Everyone the meeting knew that ex­pected ore traffic on the Sea­way had not materialized and that grain had been the salva­tion during the 1959‐63 seasons.

Few people, however, realize that grain is one of the really “exciting developments” in United States foreign trade, Mr. Liebenow said.

Last year the United States exported 1.3 billion bushels of grain. The Seaway alone car­ried 223 million bushels in 1963 —United States grain exported from United States Great Lakes ports—and as far as grain is concerned the United States use of the Seaway is increasing faster than Canadian use.

Mr. Liebenow noted that east­ern seaboard grain shipments had dropped sharply since the Seaway opened. The Seaway, he said, has “felt in grain the main thrust of the Seaway effect.”

On Seaway physical deficien­cies, several speakers said the two countries would have to give serious consideration—but in future years—to an expansion of the locks and channels. They are too shallow, or too short and too narrow in an era in which the world is turning to huge bulk ships to achieve economy of operation.

Locks' Limitations

The locks are limited to 800 feet by 80 feet with a 30‐foot depth maximum and the chan­nels have a maximum depth of 27 feet, accommodating vessels down to 25½‐foot draft. As Professor Hazard pointed out, this is a relatively small canal, 200 feet less in length, 30 feet less in width and 10 feet less in depth than the Panama Canal.

Louis C. Purdey, general manager of the Toledo‐Lucas County Port Authority, who was one of the speakers, pre­sented what he described as some “inconceivable facts” about how Federal agencies manage to avoid the Seaway ports in moving Government cargoes.

The Defense Department ships annually about 7.5 million tons out of the country. Forty per cent of this material is manu­factured in “the hinterland of the Great Lakes” but only a “paltry” average of 100,000 tons a year moves through Great Lakes ports, Mr. Purdey said.

He had similar figures for surplus agricultural and relat­ed cargoes. In one category, the national total in one year was 4,815,178 tons and the Great Lakes share, at compara­ble freight rates, was 59,923 tons.